90% of the problems people have when getting into property boil down to one of two things: finding a deal or funding a deal.

On the funding side my inbox is always bursting with a whole range of mortgage questions, but when it comes to “finding” there’s one question that comes up more than any other: “can you recommend a property sourcer?”

Unfortunately no, I can’t – but that’s not very helpful, so in this post I’ll give you some pointers on finding someone yourself.

By a country mile, the most common question I’ve been asked this year is:

“Should I buy properties in my own name, or within a company?”

Up until The Great Warning Off Of 2015 (when the treatment of mortgage interest was changed for individuals but not companies), there wasn’t all that much difference. But now, depending on your situation, there really is.

Talking about tax is difficult because there are so many interactions between different factors it’s almost impossible to generalise. However, there’s one rule of thumb that’s a good place to start in deciding which ownership structure is best.

One of my favourite rules for life is to look at what everyone else is doing, then do the opposite. Anyone following this logic by selling property in 2007 and buying it in 2009 would have done very nicely indeed over the last 10 years.

Aside from market timing, where else is there the potential to be a property contrarian? Here are a few ways I’ve spotted recently…

When I tell people that one of my businesses (LendSwift) involves lending money for property projects, one reaction is more common than any other: “wow, that’s too risky for me – I’d rather just own property myself”.

Which is funny, because I used to feel the same way. But now I perceive it as being less risky than ownership over an equivalent length of time. In this post, I’ll try to similarly re-wire your brain when it comes to debt investments.